Jerome Fontamillas is excited about returning to Australia – for he and the band of which he’s the keyboardist, San Diego group Switchfoot, Australia has proved to be a happy hunting ground for which to gain new fans.

“We feel like Australia’s like a home away from home,” Jerome confirms. It’s like a sister city to San Diego, and like southern California it’s just got the best weather and people are so laid back.”

The band’s fifth album, and second for a major label, Nothing is Sound had a very different gestation period to the breakthrough predecessor The Beautiful Letdown. While Jon Foreman is the principal songwriter, and he comes in with the ‘ideas’ as Jerome calls them, the thing that was different about this album was that for the most part the album was written whilst on the road, touring.

“We hadn’t had much free time back home because we’ve been touring so much,” he explains, “so we just set up back stage with a small drum kit, guitars, and put the song together. We’d maybe perform it that evening and figure out if the crowd reaction was great or not, and if it was then we’d keep the song, and if it was bad we would not! Most of the songs on this album came from a strong songwriting ethic – that’s the difference between this album and the last album, in that we didn’t have a lot of time so we just wanted to record on the road. We wrote most of it then got back to San Diego and booked a couple of dates, and [producer] John Fields came down and pieced it all together. Actually, in between gigs we were doing that – we’d go out on the road, then back for a few days, and record, then back on the road again. You don’t really ever stop being on the road.”

Jerome says it wasn’t so much that it was difficult to write on the road, as it was a challenge that the band had to overcome. “It can be done, and I don’t recommend it to always record this way, but it brought a different angle that we thought would be great for this next album. We feel like it’s the next step for the band.”

Switchfoot got their break with The Beautiful Letdown as they moved from their contemporary Christian music roots to a more secular audience via a major label deal Columbia. “The great thing is we’ve always played in the mainstream format; the band grew up playing the clubs, and it wasn’t a major change to crossover to the mainstream. A lot of the time it’s a case of not wanting to put yourself in a box, and our music we feel is for everyone, Christians and non-Christians. Everybody!”

As a songwriter, Jon Foreman certainly deals in universal themes – the key topics like life, death, sex, and redemption all exist in the Switchfoot world. “Talking to Jon, and him sharing his points on the album, it feels like he’s just maturing in his ideas. He’s maybe looking at the bigger picture and looking at it from a different perspective.”

Nothing is Sound certainly sounds like a big record – every song is anthemic beyond belief. In that respect, Nothing is Sound posits Switchfoot as the logical successor to the Goo Goo Dolls.

“Wow, that’s a big claim,” Jerome exclaims in surprise. “We’re really excited about it,” he says of Nothing is Sound. “It’s a little nerve-wracking, because you listen to the album and you put every single thing about the album into your head, and you begin rethinking it. So you just want to get this part over with, and get the album out there for people to hear it. That was one of the great things about writing on the road – they got to grow through playing them live to the point where they’re now different to how they first started, and you play it a certain way and then you try and capture that. We recorded twenty or twenty-five songs, so we already have enough material for another album. A lot of it’s ‘not done’ yet, and it needs a little bit more polishing, so when the time comes you reassess the song and see if it’s worth a shot at making it a good song or not.”

Where do Switchfoot fit in in the American music scene?

“I feel like this is the greatest job in my life, and if I could keep playing shows and making records then the numbers don’t matter to me.”

But the higher the sales the more likely that is to happen.

“I know, it’s this whole vicious circle [laughs].”

As much as Jerome loves Sigur Rós and Radiohead, he also readily admits that he likes bands like U2 and Coldplay just as much. It’s interesting – are Switchfoot ready to become an American Coldplay? They’ve got the songs. Are the atmospherics of a Radiohead something you’d be interested in incorporating in the future sound of Swtichfoot?

“I play the keyboards and do all the tweaks and noises, and I love that kind of stuff. Whenever I get a chance to do that in the song, or when the other band members let me or if I can sneak it in, then I’ll do it.”

Switchfoot’s Nothing is Sound is out now, with the band touring Australia currently. Dates:
Friday September 30 - Sydney, UNSW Roundhouse
Monday, October 3 - Brisbane, The Tivoli